Seals
by Shadsie
Summary: The price to be paid was heavy. The fool rushed in unknowing. With each slain sacrifice, a memory gone. With each broken seal, a piece of his soul. Sixteen lives will be taken to bring back one as the hunter loses himself bit by bit.
1. The Beginning of the Ritual

_**Disclaimer and Notes: **Shadow of the Colossus and related properties belong to Sony. A chaptered-story, though the chapters will likely be short. A take on the "price" of the ritual expanded from what we see in the actual game. All of the "background" stuff about the characters is and will be stuff pulled from my shiny not-so-metal bum since the canon is such a beautiful void. _

* * *

**SEALS**

**Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Ritual**

"_The price you pay may be heavy indeed." _

Those words echoed in the warrior's head as the hooves of his great black horse thundered over the plain. The light from his sacred sword showed him where to go. His horse was not the biggest animal he had ever seen, but was the biggest animal he had ever ridden.

Wander had heard the tales… that living things in the Forbidden Land were as mountains. All he'd seen so far were the hawks, the doves and the lizards. He was a hunter and had seen many kinds of animals out in the forests and fields. He knew how to fell the deer, the elk and the wild boar. The largest beast he'd ever seen in his life was an elephant. He'd never hunted the creatures and had seen the one he did but once. His father had taken him to see the animal after his nation's soldiers had conquered a land teaming with great beasts and had brought a few back for the civilians to marvel at.

The gray creature had been chained in the heart of their city. The shackles had rubbed its legs raw. Wander had been but a child then and so could make no protest over the creature's treatment. From what he remembered, the eyes stood out to him the most. After all these years, Wander could not forget those grieving eyes. They were intelligent eyes. If beasts had no souls, this one had done an excellent job of trickery.

The young man was in awe as the earth shook. He'd left his horse behind and clambered up to the plateau, using every last upper-body muscle he had. His fingers were bruised and their tips were scraped. His biceps felt like they were on fire. He'd always been an agile boy and would recover quickly. The ground beneath him trembled under what sounded and felt to be footsteps.

Out of the dust and mist, Wander saw it. He beheld his first Colossus – one of the beings of legend… One of the idols he had to destroy. It was of a classic build, like a statue that might guard a city, only with patches of thick mammalian fur here and there upon its frame.

Wander snuck around it. The voice of the Dormin echoed through his spirit, telling him to use the light of the sword to decipher the giant's vitals. This was no easy task. The closer the hunter got to his prey, the more areas of tough hide, metal and stone he could see.

And, of course, the beast tried to step on him.

Wander's human body to the body of the Colossus was like that of a mouse to his own, and a runt of the litter newborn mouse at that. Avoiding being stomped on, the young hunter ran around and found what looked to be a wound on one of the legs of this living statue, partially covered in fur. The diminutive assassin figured out in short order what to do from there. Wander jumped to avoid the crush of the hoof and found himself grabbing onto the warm, brushy fur. He clambered on and gave the wound a sound stab. The victim moaned and leaned over in pain, giving his attacker a prime opportunity to scramble up his great body.

The seal on the giant's head glowed brightly after many jabs and spikes. Wander made one final, clumsy stab. Black oil spouted with tremendous pressure. The stuff was made of shadow and smelled of blood. Wander caught a glimpse of one of the creature's eyes as it fell. The eye was simple and stark, but profoundly sad.

It was just like the elephant's eyes had been.

Shadow fell over the giant's form and the light when out in its sorrowed eyes. That was when Wander saw the threads of shadow. His heart, just beginning to calm after the battle, started up a harsh rhythm again. He ran. He didn't know what those things were, but they were coming straight for him. His legs pumped in a dead heat as he felt his heart pierced from behind. He uttered a short gasp as more spears of darkness shot through his arms, his legs and his body.

The warrior would never be able to describe it, but he felt as if something was being ripped from him and was being replaced with cold darkness.

After the "transfer of blood" was over, Wander had never seen an elephant. There was no memory of it. The largest living being he had ever beheld in his life was the first Colossus. The largest he'd seen before that was his great horse, or maybe a wild bear.

The sad eyes of the dying Colossus would remain with him. They were the saddest eyes he'd ever seen on a beast.


	2. The Second Sacrifice

**SEALS**

**Chapter 2: The Second Sacrifice**

Wander ran as fast as he could through the grassy field, a bucket flailing by the handle in his hand. A young woman stood beside a wooden fence, watching him huff and puff, red-faced. She giggled as the young man vaulted over the fence.

"Milk, my lady," he said, bowing to one knee and presenting her with the metal pail.

"Why did you run all the way here?" Mono asked, confused and amused.

"I…" Wander breathed. He pointed back over to the tall grass of the field. A large animal came thundering forth, the seedy grass stalks nearly concealing its brown and white mottled form. Impressive horns parted the grass.

"Oh, Wander; you didn't try to milk my father's bull, did you?"

"Well…" Wander began, getting up, "The cows cooperated just fine when I coaxed the calves out of the way. I milked two of them for you, and then I came to him. With that tall grass, I couldn't see until I'd gotten right up to his hind-end. I'd forgotten how fowl-tempered he was."

Mono laughed a tinkling laugh as Wander rubbed his hair awkwardly.

"I didn't touch anything! I swear! I patted him on the back all nice-like and he turns around and snorts, and, well, I wasn't sticking around. So, anyway, is that enough milk?"

"Well," Mono said, inspecting the pail, "We usually get a little more for the family than this before breakfast, but it's enough for you and me to share for the time being."

"Well, there's that, at least," Wander said, smiling awkwardly.

"This is usually woman's-work… for my sister's and me."

"I wanted to do something nice."

From behind the fence, somewhere in the grass, the breeding-bull bellowed.

* * *

When Wander had brought the great stone bull by the sea to its knees, he first found his way up the beast's body by clambering toward its hind-end. A few stabs in its docked tail had the Colossus moaning and writhing madly to shake him off.

The young man ran and leapt over the spine, marveling at the stone vertebrae that moved independently of one another. This creature looked partially dead already, an animal partly in bone made of stone, its life was like an earthquake below his feet as he danced and jumped, struggling to stay on. Wander briefly wondered if his horse had the sense to stay out of the way. He worried about her being crushed beneath enormous hooves.

He was nearly exhausted when he found himself gripping to the hair above the seal on the Colossus' head. Wander wondered if, from the Land of the Dead, Mono could see him riding this bull. He'd always been a coward in regards to her family's bull. Right now, he was not letting himself being chased - he'd been the one to chase this one down.

With one last stab, the stone bull moaned and went down, sending Wander down with it. With that one last stab into the mangled seal, the memory of Mono's face, kissed by the sun, laughing at him for almost milking her father's bull shivered out of existence.


	3. A World Ruled by Swords

**SEALS**

**Chapter 3: A World Ruled by Swords**

Mono swung the heavy stick around in an arc, back and forth, play-acting at wielding a sword in battle, clumsily. Wander could not say that he was a superb swordsman, himself, being that he'd only touched a knight's sword once. He was of the commoner's class – not starving or a beggar, but not quite of the wealth and status that swordsmen were. A well-tempered sword could cost more than a horse or as much as a full suit of armor. Wander was a man of the bow, a skilled hunter of the fields and woods. His skill lay in commoner's weapons, the practical kind that put meat on the table.

He'd defended his city in battle not long ago against a horde of invaders. He was one of the archers, fighting from the walls rather than out on the front lines. He'd used his common man's bow with all the skill, might and heart within him because he knew that if the invaders breached the city gates, not only his life was forfeit, but the lives of all of the most vulnerable in the city - his aging and ill father, his brother's wife and young children and of course, Mono. She would surely have had bad things done to her before she was killed or else made to be a slave if he'd failed. He had not known the faces of the men his arrows had stricken. He did not need to know, nor did he want to. They were not even men to him, truly, but beasts behind helms. He'd had the Limitless spell placed upon his quiver then – a magic charm given to him by one of the city priests that kept him in never-ending arrows. Most in his rank had used the charm.

Wander admired Mono's slender waist as she arced in her practice with the stick. She was not strongly-curved. She was a thin girl, typical of their shared class. Her frame gave her a kind of innocence. So did her playful nature. Still, she had some nice hips when her dress clung to them just right.

"What are you doing?" Wander wondered aloud, "Are you trying to beat back ghosts?"

There was an old wives' tale that if one encountered black spirits in the woods, one could fend them off with a large enough stick.

"No," Mono answered, "I'm just playing around, like a form of exercise. I wonder how I'd be with a real sword. If our city is ever breached I'd like to be able to defend myself… at least until I can get to you."

Wander stepped forward and reached out to cup Mono's chin in one hand. "That will never happen," he said with sad eyes. "You don't ever need to worry about that. Our walls are strong, we have many knights and… well, I won't let anything bad happen to you, ever."

"You speak like we are already married, instead of just betrothed."

"I'll launch my last arrow and give my last breath before I see any harm come to you, and, if need be, I'll come back as a smoke-spirit to protect you."

Mono took his hand off her face and cupped it in her own hands. "You promise too much. Everyone in love says they'll do anything for their lover, but you shouldn't make promises you cannot keep. Anyway, do you want to go see a really special sword? The temple is open today and Sword of Light is on display."

"Sword of Light?"

"You know the one! It's from the legend about the Forbidden Land."

"That's just a story, isn't it?"

"The part of the temple where it's kept is open today. Lord Emon and his guardians are there to make sure nothing happens to it. I think they're even allowing people to touch it to gain fortune."

Wander shrugged. "I guess a recent victory in battle is a good reason to show artifacts like that off."

"Let's go!" Mono grabbed his hand and pulled him, running, to the center of the Grand City. They made their way to the central tower. They walked their way up along the spiral in the Tower of Heaven's interior along with many other pilgrims.

"Isn't it pretty?" Mono asked Wander, looking up at the double-edged sword mounted upon a tawny stone wall flanked by torches and lit by an opposing window in the sword's special room.

"It looks sharp," Wander observed. He shrank a little under the gaze of the imposing figure in the mask and robe. The figure lifted his mask to reveal a stern and elderly-but-not-yet-overly-wizened face.

"Ah! Aren't you one of our valiant young archers who saved the city?" Emon asked of Wander.

"There were many of us," Wander said humbly.

"I remember blessing you and your weapons. Not many even of our own escaped that battle unhurt. The gods must have favored you."

"We wanted to touch the sword," Mono spoke up. "For a blessing."

"Very well," Lord Emon said as he took the blade down and held it out, allowing Mono and Wander to lightly trace their fingers along it. "Careful by the edge, it is…"

Wander winched and sucked his finger.

"I warned you not to touch the edge," Emon said. "This is a very special sword. It divides Life from Death."

"Don't all swords do that?" Wander quipped.

"More than the average sword, boy," Emon elaborated. "This one divides Light from Shadow. It creates and breaks seals and is the blade that keeps Death from overrunning our lands."

Lord Emon put the sword away.

"The story I heard about that sword is that it was used to seal an ancient god that controlled the passage of souls between our world and the Land of the Dead."

"A demon," Emon corrected, "And a 'they.' The Dormin was a legion of entities both many and one."

"Is it true that the Dormin could bring back the dead?" Mono asked.

"It is not wise to ask such questions or to think upon such things," Lord Emon intoned. "Go on now. Others also wish to see the sword. You both are young. Enjoy the lives that you have."

* * *

Wander felt the weight of the sacred sword in his hand as he stared at the gray-blue giant with the stone sword in its hand.

The remains of the sky-temple above the lake reminded him, a little, of the Tower of Heaven back home. The young man stood tense and ready to run. He'd positioned himself on the center of a great stone dais. After getting a good look at this Colossus, he figured that if it tried to pound him, it would shatter its armor on something hard, revealing more of its softer, furred areas for him to climb.

Scrabbling up these creatures' bodies like an insect was no honorable combat… This Colossus had a sword just like he did, except it was huge, blocky and made of stone – a club that resembled a sword.

It wouldn't be fair combat if they did this like men, anyway. Wander knew that he would be crushed in one blow or at least knocked head over tail. He watched the tower-tall creature pull back its "blade," its slender waist twisting.

A melancholy sort of joy came over Wander for a moment. For a second, the great beast reminded him of Mono swinging her stick, pretending at defending herself from marauders.

He saw the blade descending for him and took off in a dead run. He leapt and rolled and he heard the crack of the stone armor shattering off the Colossus' arm. He smiled before running out of the way again, leading the behemoth a few steps forward, a few steps forward…

Crash! The giant swordsman got his weapon stuck in the ground. Wander used it as a platform to run along, only to stagger and fall as the sword was raised it up. As Wander clung to the edge of the wall-like "blade," he thought about life in a world ruled by swords.

Just like men, the Colossi fought with all they had to survive. They took up armor and arms. Wander knew that this was a situation was one which only one of them would walk away from – or that neither of them would walk away from considering he never knew quite what happened or how he'd gotten back to Dormin's tower once the shadow-threads came for him. He determined himself to this: that he would survive. He had to - to complete the ritual – for Mono.

After climbing all over the beast and destroying the seal upon its head, Wander stabbed the Colossus' stomach, thin compared to the rest of its body. After the sword sliced into the soft tissue in the final stab required to break the seal and to kill the being, Wander jumped down and started running, hoping to avoid the threads. All he knew about them was that he expected them now after killing one of these things, that they hurt when they caught up to him and stabbed into his body, and that he felt cold and "empty" somehow as they hit him. He knew what to expect from them, but still felt as terrified of them as he did when he'd seen them for the first time rising from the slain body of the first Colossus.

He nearly made it to the edge of the platform in the sky when he was hit. Wander closed his eyes and the memory he had of watching Mono comically swinging a stick, her delicate waist flexing - vanished.


	4. Mounts and Riders

**SEALS**

**Chapter 4: Mounts and Riders**

He'd sought the "guiding graves" of which the Dormin had spoken. All Wander found was a hollow among the mist. Leaves of tall grass jutted up in places and waved in the gentle breezes. Perhaps, at one time, there had been graves in this place. As it was, there were no markers save the grasses in their mysterious formations. If this had been a cemetery, the stones that marked where the dead were buried had long ago crumbled into dust. Wander hopped off his horse and explored a mysterious warren dug into a hill, complete with steps. It looked like it had been a place of ceremony, perhaps a place where funerals for warriors had been held or where sacrifices had been given. He found no bones in the walls, or anything else to indicate burial within the structure, itself.

The traveler did not know the entire story of this land. No one living knew, supposedly. The people that had lived in these cursed lands had vanished long ago, along with their culture and any record thereof. Wander made many guesses as to life in ancient times here upon seeing the ruins remaining of ancient structures. The Forbidden Lands had clearly held bustling population centers, and he guessed from the appearance of Dormin's Tower and the many shrines of respite scattered over the countryside that the ancient people had been very religious. The people of long ago in this place had clearly been master bridge-builders, for even in their wrecked state, the gates over the land-bridges had impressed him, not to mention the main bridge that spanned the sky that he'd come into the lands upon. The Great Bridge was clearly being held together by powerful magic, for it seemed to exist in a physically-impossible state.

The young man hopped back on his mare and rode toward a structure in the hollow. It looked like some sort of grand statue. He knew that the sword-light had not steered him wrong when the statue began to move. Wander backed Agro up and stared as the Colossus stirred to life. The hunter did not know what to make of it. It looked like a dead thing, with huge ribs, starkly skeletal. It had a horselike head with what appeared to be dangling knotted reins. How reins made of stone could sway like that was beyond him. Perhaps there was something fleshy beneath them. He wondered if mounting the Colossus to get to its tender parts might mean grabbing onto one of the reins and climbing up.

Agro whinnied and wheeled around as the creature began a laborious walk – not laborious enough, as it was rather quick for a being of its size. Wander was surprised that it did not topple upon its spindly legs, as they seemed to be capable of carrying more weight than they should. The beast looked like a designer's nightmare, not much unlike a horse at all. With its skeletal appearance, the great war-horse looked like an appropriate guardian for ancient graves.

Wander wondered if a beast such as this had ferried Mono's soul to the other side.

When it was upon him, he made for the ancient warren to keep himself from being crushed. Agro could not fit inside and ran about, screaming breathless horse-screams that tore her master's heart. Wander silently cursed her. With her swift legs she could easily outpace this Colossus, making her escape up the path they had come down. Agro, for good fortune or for ill, was a brave horse, braver than most of her species, and ardently bonded to him. She would not run to safety, even if he were dead.

As he huddled in the center of the warren, bracing himself against the shaking of the earth, his mind took him back to better times. He had a memory of a golden field under partly-cloudy skies. The clouds were tinged in the colors of the beginning dusk – pink and orange mingling with them, shooting their silver linings through with copper and gold.

Mono laughed as she sat on Agro's saddle. Wander smiled at her, holding the reins as they walked.

"She's an easy ride," the young woman said. "Maybe it's because she's so big… a charger."

"I don't know about that," Wander replied, licking his dry lips.

This was not the first horse the young woman had ridden. She was actually quite good at riding, despite not having a horse of her own anymore. Her family's market-going nag had died that winter and a good horse was generally for those who could afford them. Mono had no need to go far outside the city like Wander did for his hunting trips. It was the difference between farming families and hunting or warrior families.

"I don't like the thought of you going abroad to war," Mono said suddenly. "All men must defend the city when we're under siege, but… If the warriors find out how good your horse is… don't you think they might send you out?"

Wander looked up with her with a wink. "If that happens, Agro will carry me through. She's a courageous mare. I'll come home to you, I promise."

Mono adjusted herself in the saddle so that she was sitting astride rather than side-saddle. It was a bit unladylike even though she was wearing something under her dress, but around Wander she felt she could be herself. "There you go making promises that you don't know if you can keep again," she sighed.

"What makes you think I couldn't keep it?" Wander asked, crestfallen.

"I don't know," she said, looking toward the setting sun behind the silver clouds. "I just have this feeling… Like there's something ominous on the horizon, as though there is a price for us. I just feel this shadowed feeling upon my heart that I cannot describe."

Agro halted as Wander got up into the saddle and situated himself behind Mono. He clutched the reins in one hand and put his arms around her, holding her tight to feel her warmth in the cooling air.

"I think," said Wander, "this is all you need to worry about right now." With that, he yelped a "Hiyaa!" and kicked Agro into a gallop. Mono screamed an entertained scream and they chased the sun.

A rumble of the earth that shook him to the floor of the ceremonial cavern brought Wander back into the present. He skittered up the steps on one end of the underground structure to see the face of the war-horse Colossus leaning down and staring back at him. He wasn't even sure if it could see him. Its stone face wasn't much for expression. Immediately, fear shot through him like lightning and he ran toward one of the other entranceways. Blinking out into the sun, he saw the strange beast hunched over. It thought he was still inside.

That's when he saw its dipped-down tail. He didn't have to risk trying to climb the reins; he could try climbing its docked tailbone.

"Wonderful," he said to himself sarcastically. He screwed up his courage and made a run for the tail, hoping the creature wouldn't notice that he was no longer trapped like a rabbit in its hole.

As he ran up its back, the young man counted this as definitely the strangest horse he'd ever ridden. It bucked like a beast untamed. Wander was overcome with the disturbing feeling that the Colossus knew exactly what was going on. He was not just an annoying flea to it, he was Death. He was not riding a dumb beast or even a loyal steed, trained to battle. He was riding a guardian of the dead that did not want to die.

The first stab into the seal upon the head brought the most horrible sound that Wander had ever heard. Where the other Colossi had groaned, moaned or had remained silent, this one screamed, and screamed hard. Wander had heard something like it one other time before: The horses that the people who'd come to invade his city had ridden to the gates… When they'd been hit by arrows, spears, heavy stones and other weapons that had been used to fend off the siege, the animals that had not been killed right away had whinnied desperately, begging their masters for respite, making the most horrible sounds.

Nights since that battle had found Wander awakening from nightmares of seeing his beloved Agro filled with arrows or flailing on the ground with a broken back, breathing out just such a horrible death-cry.

Wander felt tears running down his cheeks. He whispered apologies. "I'm trying to make it quick," he said as he held onto a wad of hair for his own dear life. Another stab, another scream. "This is for her," he explained under his breath.

The cry reverberated through his skull.

"Please just die already!" Wander pleaded as he made the final, killing thrust, sighing in relief as he felt the creature begin to fall.

He and Mono chased the sun into oblivion, the memory drowned by the screams of a dying steed.

As the familiar threads pierced Wander's heart, he was sure that he was losing something and becoming something that was in some way not-himself. The problem with this kind of loss is that it was impossible to know what one had lost. It was simply an empty sense, occupied by something unknown, a "shadowed feeling upon the heart," perhaps. All he knew before blacking out with the vision of slain war-horse on a battlefield stained with black blood in his line of vision was that he did not like the feeling at all.


	5. The Freedom of Flight

**SEALS**

**Chapter 5: The Freedom of Flight**

Even in his grief, Wander found some bright spots in life. Even this lost and forbidden country held some simple joys. The wind in his hair felt wonderful as he rode through the land in perpetual daylight. The sun shone behind gentle clouds in a sky that seemed never to change. The young warrior hadn't seen the sun rise or set. He was certain that he had been here for several days, yet Time seemed to be stilled in this place. He slept here and there at the small shrines, never sure how long he'd rested. He awakened in the Dormin's Tower after he'd felled each Colossus. He'd gone back to the place he'd found the beasts to ascertain that he had not dreamed. He'd found piles of rubble and rock. He knew what they were. As he knelt to pray for their spirits – if they even had spirits – and remembered combat with worthy opponents, the memories came back to him vividly, sepia-toned in his mind, but exciting.

Time surely stood still in this place – where lines or energies met – as the legends had described it. Wander wondered if Dormin was giving his dear Mono special protection. Hers was a corpse that was not acting as a corpse. Her breath was stilled and her pierced heart did not beat yet she did not bloat or decay. Her skin was pale, but her flesh was not breaking down. She did not even seem to be particularly stiff.

Wander remembered pausing in the forest on their journey to rub her down and massage her limbs to try to combat rigor mortis. A stiff body was difficult to carry on horseback. He'd wept while doing it and as he wiped away the blood that seeped through the bandages he'd wound around her beneath her fresh dress. Wander was not a man known for tears, but they flowed freely while he was in the darkness of the forest. The only living being there to witness the tender emotion of a hardened hunter was a large brown hawk that had alighted on the branch of an ancient oak.

Hawks had followed him to this land. They seemed like the only things that had. The hunter had noticed the lack of game in this place. This green country should be teeming with deer, rabbits, fine-furred foxes and other things to hunt. He'd think a land of open plains like this would hold wild oxen, or at least some large, tasty ground-nesting birds. As it was, there were only lizards, turtles, bats in a few of the darker places, and doves. He'd caught a large fish with his bare hands and wrestled it to shore once when he'd explored a deep pond. Wander had no idea where this newfound strength had come from. He'd eaten a little of the salmon he'd taken, because he assumed that he should eat, but the truth was that he'd felt very little hunger since coming to the Forbidden Land. It further made him wonder if he was moving around and living in a world where Time had otherwise stopped.

The hawks were big here and seemed to like to follow him when he was riding. On a whim, he'd jumped up out of the saddle and tried to catch one. To the young man's astonishment, he'd not only succeeded, but the feathered creature was strong enough to carry him for several feet before dipping and depositing him upon the muddy earth. That was definitely unnatural. Mono would have loved to see that…

She'd once said that when she died, she hoped to mount up on great wings and fly, like the hawks that flew over her family's farming fields. She'd cited an old legend that said that people's spirits could do amazing things in the Land of the Dead. It was a story that ran counter to it being a shaded, gray place of no thought and no feeling, or of so little thought and feeling that the soul might as well have been the corpse. Then there were tales of ghosts and smoke-men- all supposedly forlorn, lost souls. If the more positive idea was true, Wander could only hope that his lady had gotten her wish – but it was hard for him to believe in any of the positive myths. Perhaps, by enacting this deal with the Dormin, he was only stealing her freedom.

He thought back to all of the animals he'd killed over the years for food and money to support his family – and even to support Mono's family from time to time. Wander had hunted primarily for meat, though he'd taken furs every now and again. What flesh he'd brought home, once dried and smoked, had seen them through starvation-winters and they'd shared what they could with neighbors in need. There was no freedom in the eyes of a doe deer as she had her last spasms, only a struggle against and ultimately an acceptance of death. Mono hadn't come with him on hunting trips. Though she knew the facts of the world, she loved animals and had no wish to see the making of the sacrifices to keep her and others alive.

Wander laughed to himself ruefully as his horse galloped along a trail above an immense drop. Maybe this was the truest kind of Fate. He was a hunter, hunting down sacrifices for the sake of her living. The theme hadn't changed, only the setting and the circumstances. He did not like the circumstances, however. For one thing, he had to make use of a sword for this ritual. Wander was much more comfortable with his bow. Some men among his city's soldiers and others who boasted of their skills with weapons – those wealthy enough to wield swords – spoke of the bow as not only a commoner's weapon, but as a weapon of cowards since arrows were long-range. Wander thought of things in a different way – a well-placed arrow was a quick and merciful way to die.

He was stabbing the Colossi over and over again with the holy sword. It made him wonder why it was considered holy. He had yet to fell one of the giants with a single strike. It was unfortunately necessary. Not only were arrows tiny enough to be as insect-bites to the creatures, only this sword had the power to break the seals.

A hawk shed a feather, which fluttered down. Wander reached up and caught it. He halted Agro near a shrine, but remained mounted. He turned the light object over in his fingers and smiled. It was a rather nice wing-feather, big and reddish-brown with a few speckles of black. He'd taken one similar to it that he'd found on a small journey and had crafted something beautiful out of it. He'd carved a bit of ox-bone and had carefully wrapped colored threads around the shaft of that feather and had strung it on a leather strip as a necklace for Mono for her birthday last year. The ox bone bead served as a weight to keep the feather centered over her chest. She wore it often, but not when in ceremonial dress. It had not seemed fitting to make it a part of her funeral-attire…such a simple, poor-person's ornament.

She had adored it. It had been a symbol of flight and freedom for her.

The wanderer spurred his horse onward. He came to misty waters and what looked like the remains of a fortress over it. All was worn stone and rusted wrought-iron. He swam with his equipment secured and he climbed a high tower. It amazed him how much strength his body had been gaining lately, but he felt like something had been lost to gain it. A cold feeling settled into his heart. He heard a strange noise and knew that his prey was near. The cold feeling grew – and it came with the strangest of thoughts – the idea that he wanted to be free and he wanted to kill and that the two were inextricably linked.

Down he dove into the lake. Wander came to rest upon a platform belonging to what he guessed might have been an old fisherman's dock or a rest for swimmers, or maybe something that had been built for some arcane ceremony. He heard a birdlike screech and saw a shadow come over the already shadowed lake.

The great stone phoenix landed in a high place and just looked at him. Wander stared back. The Colossus did nothing. It appeared to be curious about him. It glared balefully as if warning him to get out of its nesting-grounds. It reminded him of the hawk that had watched him weep in the woods on his path to this ancient land.

Dormin's voices intruded upon the quiet puzzlement of his mind. Wander remained staring. He thought about what this Colossus looked like – a phoenix – a legendary bird who died and was reborn, a mythical creature that people from the Eastern lands spoke of. The fairy tales had it that the blood of the phoenix could give one eternal life, or revive the dead.

The bothersome Legion of voices had plans for the blood of the stone-phoenix and they were going to make sure their hired hunter was going to do their will. "I'll get its attention," Wander groused as he knocked back an arrow. He aimed for the sitting "hawk" and fired. The bird left its perch and arched slowly around the lake. Wander sent another arrow its way, then another, right into the tender-looking furred portion of its long tail.

Again, Wander was struck over the un-natural nature of these Forbidden Lands. The flying Colossus appeared to be quite heavy, yet it could soar effortlessly. The impressive length of its tail should destabilize its flight and make its rear dip, much like peacocks' plumage in mating-season did to the poor goofy birds, but it rode the air and the mist like a great magical cloak. Also, it was a bird with fur instead of feathers.

It came right for him with murder on its mind. Stone talons crashed into Wander, sending him flying, breathless into the cool waters of the lake. White spots dotted his vision as he instinctually flailed to keep himself afloat. He hurt all over. Desperately, he managed to swim to a sheltered area among the strange platforms, a structure that had been part of some sort of a keep. He checked his ribs to make sure none were broken. He panted and caught his breath. He wiped his face and found blood, apparently from his nose.

The enormous bird was still soaring. It seemed to be riding the air peacefully, but Wander remained wary of it. It had missed its chance to grab and crush him. He had missed his chance to jump onto its back – which was what he'd thought to do as soon as it had dipped low for him. He didn't know if he could make it.

That damned sword! If only he could make do with arrows – fill the beast full of them until it fell! He had the Limitless spell on his quiver, but he knew with a feeling of defeat that he had to use the sword. Why couldn't the power of life and death have been sealed away by someone with a sacred arrow and not a sacred sword?

"People don't hunt birds with swords!" he growled to himself. "People don't hunt anything but other people with swords!"

Mono deserved a knight, not a hunter.

Once he felt better, still in pain, but better, Wander made his way to a center platform, one that he thought would give him the best advantage for leaping. He made a satisfied smirk as a couple of his swift arrows landed home. He slung his bow back over his shoulder and brought out the sword that divided light from darkness. As the phoenix came for him once more, Wander wondered if this was going to be the end – the dissolution of the contract… He wondered if he'd see Mono again, not through bringing her back to life, but through joining her in death. Maybe the gray-world would feel like freedom just because they were together.

Instead, he leapt and got a fierce hold onto the bird-Colossus' right wing. Wander held on for dear life as the living statue gained altitude sharply and started to writhe and roll. He couldn't see any way over to the creature's head. Seals seemed to be on the head with these things, but the phoenix had a helm of thick stone armor. He looked over at the tip of the wing as it flapped. There! The hunter staggered and fell over himself as he navigated the flapping stone floor beneath him and it was only by luck that he rolled right into the seal and made haste to stab it into a ghastly spray of black phoenix-blood.

He proceeded to do the same with the left wing. After a roll, the creature remained airborne. Wander fell in a free-fall until, by chance, he grabbed some sturdy hair upon the creature's back. The Colossus leveled out in its flight again. Curiosity led Wander to make a run for the tip of the tail.

As he clumsily stabbed, he saw a vision of Mono on her birthday and his hand passing the hawk-feather necklace into hers. The memory was misty and sepia-toned: She smiled and hugged him in the vision. She kissed him gently and it sent a delightful tingling through him body and soul.

His spirit fell like a wounded hawk as he felt the altitude rapidly drop. The feather-necklace and the hands of soft flesh that had received it, the warm and tingling kiss, and the joy in his soul dissolved and turned to gray as the wanderer felt the splash of water on his face and the shadows came to claim him once again.


	6. Grandfather's Tales

**SEALS**

**Chapter 6: Grandfather's Tales**

The world was a blur and his heart was empty.

The architecture around him was familiar in style, but strange in composition. It was as if he'd awoken in Dormin's Tower after having slept a non-night there and everything had changed. He was definitely in a fortress of some kind. Wander hoped he hadn't accidentally taken his rest at some random ruin.

He looked down at his legs and then at his arms. He had a shadow over him, like what had fallen over the slain Colossi. No… he was shadow, composed entirely of it as if shadow were a substance. He smelled blood all around him – he stank of blood.

Had he died? He was clearly a smoke-man, a black ghost. He could move swiftly, phasing through and over the stone floor, but his heart felt weighted. He felt hollow and incomplete.

Where was Mono? He saw not her body and felt not her soul. Instead, he saw two children running on the edge of his vision. They were most unusual. There was a gray-white girl and a boy with horns like a wild ox. The boy approached him, wielding a large stick. Wander felt himself dissipate as the stick struck him.

He awoke with a snort.

Wander picked himself up off the floor at the base of the small shrine on the outside of Dormin's Tower. He'd slept sitting up, holding his sword again – his "at the ready" position. He had no idea if or when his countrymen were going to show up to try to stop the ritual. He assumed he'd be followed as soon as Lord Emon found the sacred sword gone. This place is the only place anyone would take it, logically. He knew that Emon's men wouldn't hesitate to kill him in his sleep. If they could celebrate the killing of an innocent maiden, dispatching a sinner like him would be a small matter, nothing that would plague their minds.

Wander had heard the full tale of the Forbidden Land from Emon, just as he'd heard tales of the smoke-men from his grandfather. When he was a child, Wander had heard many tales from the man with his long, plush beard. He, his father and his brother would sit around campfires in the field as the elder would stroke his beard and speak about the beasts of the field and their habits. Wander's father would laugh with his grandfather, recounting hunting stories.

Grandfather also liked to tell tales of mythic beasts. A favorite of Wander's was the story of the Minotaur, a vicious bull-headed man who had been locked away in a labyrinth by ancient gods. Maidens were sacrificed to him to keep him from breaking free and terrorizing the outside world. The monster had been slain by a great hero.

Wander thought that the first Colossus he'd faced resembled the beast from that story. It had been stomping and tromping out in the open, however, and had only appeared when he'd awoken it. He'd been no sacrifice or hero thrown into a maze. He'd been an invader onto an open territory. The great beast had acted as any strong animal would that could not flee – it fought. Wander was certain that he'd faced an honorable warrior.

When he found himself in the confines of an ancient temple, he'd found the Minotaur of the kind described in his grandfather's tales. It moved through the temple basement, destroying walls and fixtures. It had a big, fluffy beard that swayed as it moved its head. Wander observed this. The beard reminded him of his grandfather's. While his father had kept his beard trimmed and Wander kept the clean-shaven look of a youth, a long beard was the pride of aged men in his country. Few men's beards were as proud as the one his grandfather wore.

The old man had died a few years ago. He had not been afraid of death. "It's funny," he'd said to his grandson as he lay sick in bed in the family home, "It's something you fight and fear all your life, and when it's approaching you, you give up, give in and accept it. It's not so bad. It really isn't so bad at all. I am at peace."

The rumble of the Colossus' hooves echoed through the temple as Wander hid behind a pillar like a mouse in a hole. He wasn't like his late grandfather. Wander was afraid of death and intended to fight it. He wasn't afraid of it in the typical way: It was something he was willing to face for that which he believed in… and for the person he loved. He wasn't afraid to go out a warrior, yet he remained deeply afraid. A healthy fear of mortality was what kept a warrior alive, alert to the deadly moves of his enemy.

The young man was pretty sure he had experienced death or something like it. Every time he'd felled a Colossus for Dormin, he saw what old and sick people on their deathbeds reported seeing – light, a tunnel or circle of light. He could have sworn he'd heard Mono's voice again, too, but it came as through water, the words indecipherable and incomplete. For him, that twilight was not a place of peace or surrender. Death really was as bad as he'd feared. He'd felt himself disappearing, dissipating, dissolving. He did not wish to become one with the "light," nor with any darkness or gray-world that might have followed it. Even if the Land of the Dead was a better world, he could not stop himself from fearing it. He would claw and fight with everything in his soul to come back to the place of physical life – the only life he'd ever known. For him, death really was something to be terrified of, the surrender to it not as pleasant as old men told. That tale reeked of a lie to him.

Five times he'd awakened from this state to hear and feel the voices of the Dormin echoing through him, giving him some vague description of his next adversary, pushing him to get on task. He'd get up and get to it. That is why he found himself presently in the maze of the Minotaur.

The young hunter found himself swinging from a shaggy beard. Wander remembered how he'd grab at his grandfather's whiskers when his hands were small. They had never been enough, however, to carry his entire body. The seal upon the head was an easy butchering-job. Wander tumbled as the creature lurched and bellowed until he found the greater seal upon the beast's back. It was a pity to slice up such impressive muscles, but muscles were only meat, after all…

… or animate stone enlivened by black blood.

* * *

Sometime later, Wander came back to the location of the underground temple. He stood outside it, watching the resident turtles snuffle themselves along. He'd been hunting the black lizards here and enjoying a good ride. Despite the loneliness, this ancient land was very beautiful, desolate and lush at the same time.

Wander did not venture into the depths of the temple. He remembered it as something of an underground maze and he remembered what he'd fought there. The legend of the Minotaur was one of many old stories he'd kept close to his heart. He had no idea where he'd heard the legend or any number of tales he'd felt a strong emotional attachment to for one reason or another. He knew that there was a key element missing from them all.

He wished he could remember who had told him the stories


	7. As Quick as Scales

**SEALS**

**Chapter 7: As Quick as Scales**

Fins lit by the sun on the water flicked out of her hands. Taking the small metal hook from the fish's mouth had been a chore, and she'd expressed sorrow over making it bleed, even though it was a small wound it was likely to recover from.

"Grow large, little fish," she chimed as it disappeared into the depths of the lake. Although it would probably keep to the shallows near the shoreline, ducking beneath a rock, it still would reach places the human who'd caught it would never go.

"We've been out here all morning," Wander complained, "And I've yet to even see an eel for grilling or a nice big catfish suitable for the frying-oil. Perhaps we should change our strategy if we want something that would make a substantial meal."

"Don't you dare go for a swim!" Mono demanded. "You'll soak your clothes and it's far too cool out. You'll chill yourself. And you might get your hand bit off this time!"

"How many times have I hand-fished and came out fine?" Wander replied.

Mono looked out at the line she had out in the water. She and Wander were using simple poles, lines and a variety of hooks – metal, carved bone – and various baits. The young woman's love of animals didn't extend entirely to fish. She was kind to the small catches she'd set loose, but she didn't mind being around while Wander dispatched fish of edible-size, though she did tend to look away. No matter how nicely one went about it, it seemed that fish never died easily. Nerves twitched independently, like the writhing body of a headless snake.

"I wanted to catch something big," she said.

* * *

"Well, I caught something big," Wander whispered as he held onto the inexplicable fur of the leviathan arching and snaking in and out of the waters of the forgotten lake.

Twitching and in pain from the doses of electricity he had taken from the eel-Colossus' fins, he plunged his crude holy knife down into the creature's skull and felt it part like slick fish-bone.

The memory of a little fish in a girl's gentle hands flicked away as quick as scales.


	8. A Tale of Tails

**SEALS**

**Chapter 8: A Tale of Tails **

Wander had learned to hunt lizards from his father.

He sat atop one of the field-shrines casually tearing into a silver-white lizard-tail with his teeth. The land was spread out before him in hills and valleys. There was a great desert below him with strange stone rings half-buried in the sand. The young man had taken to the hunting of these lizards – mostly found climbing on the shrines – as a way to satisfy what little hunger he experienced. His father had told him about how the flesh of climbing lizards made one's arms and chest strong – an unsupported superstition in his culture, perhaps, but lizard tails were full of protein. The silver-tailed variety here seemed a bit different, somehow. Wander suspected that they carried some of Dormin's material essence, just as the Colossi did.

Eating them was taking away some of his strength as a man to replace it with this essence. Wander did not feel that he was "losing himself" in any measure when he'd taken a tail, but he still found the supernatural strength he gained from the glowing tails suspicious and creepy. He also found it necessary, however, as staying aboard living earthquakes using only one's hands to hang onto stone struts and bristly fur to be quite the challenge.

In addition to that, he'd grown quite curious as to what secrets were to be had in the upper levels of Dormin's Tower itself. Only a few mossy portions of the walls were capable of being gripped, but he'd found enough handholds in the stone to spark his curiosity. He had not nearly the stamina necessary to make it very far as yet, but he was determined to change that, if it was possible. He wanted to see if he could make it to the very top.

Wander ate his catch raw, letting the blood from it drip down his chin. There wasn't much blood in the tail. The hunter did not wish to climb down and make a fire to cook it. He often ate lizard's tails raw… before he'd even met the silver-tailed subspecies. Mono had hated that.

* * *

"Ah! Gotcha!"

Wander slid on his belly, grabbing a wriggling black shape with fine, smooth scales that tried to wriggle out of his hands.

"Wander, what in the world are you doing?" yelped a confused Mono as she slid off Agro and ran up to the boy. He'd just jumped of the horse as they were riding through the forest and had run after something. Wander got up off the forest floor holding a twitching black tail victoriously in his right hand.

"What in the world?" Mono repeated.

"I didn't kill it," Wander explained. "It's a black gecko. You can take their tails off and they're fine. The tails grow back after a while."

"What would you want with a lizard's tail?" the young woman asked.

"They're good for improving one's upper body strength," Wander explained. "I always feel pretty refreshed after eating one."

With that, he brought the tail (still wriggling) to his mouth and tore a hunk out of it, which he chewed and swallowed.

Mono was horrified. "You aren't even going to cook it? You're going to get sick! Don't you remember the blood-curse?"

* * *

Wander thought about the "blood-curse" as he stood atop the shrine-tower. Lately, he'd been experiencing a blood-curse of a very different kind with the intrusion of the black threads into his body and his spirit every time he felled one of pieces of the living puzzle that inhabited these lands.

The "blood-curse" was the knowledge that certain animals were not to be eaten unless all of their blood had been drained and cooked out of them. To do otherwise was to incur the curse of violent illness, perhaps even of a kind that one would not recover from. Some creatures provided flesh that could be eaten raw, provided it was exceptionally fresh. Fish and creatures that lived in oblong shells were like this. A few people even claimed that the fresh blood of a newly-slaughtered cow provided quite the nutritious meal. Most people, however, even hunters who spent much of their lives in the field and grew ravenous by the time they felled prey, bothered to build cook-fires before partaking of the life of an animal.

Most of the time, the flesh of lizards never bothered him any, even though reptiles were said by others to be particularly prone to giving people the blood-curse. He certainly didn't think the silver-tailed lizards were going to do anything bad to him at all simply because they were Dormin's and Dormin wanted him to finish his task. He could feel that knowledge coursing through his veins.

Lizard-tails had not harmed him… most of the time.

* * *

"Wander! Wake up!"

He felt a soft cloth upon his forehead, wiping away sticky sweat. He was aware of two things: The voice of concern that spoke to him belonged to Mono and his stomach ached terribly.

"Whar…where am I?" he asked. He was horizontal, laid out on a bed. It felt like straw beneath a large, shaggy skin. The room he was in was rather dark and stuffy. Pale light came in through a thick-rimmed window. This place was familiar, yet it felt strange to him in his pained state.

"You are in your own chamber." She dipped the cloth she was wiping him with into a bucket of water and rang it out. "You've been in and out of wakefulness for almost two days. I volunteered to watch you. Please don't forget who I am again."

"Maa…Mono."

"Yes, that's right."

"Mo-no… why does it stink in here?"

"You have been throwing up a lot. And a few other things, unfortunately. We tried to collect it in buckets and clean it all up, but… sometimes, when someone is as sick as you are, they start smelling of sick themselves. Here…"

Mono put a little bowl of water to Wander's lips and he sipped it. "Wha-happened?"

"Lord Emon came. He thinks you incurred a blood-curse from the lizard you ate the other day and that it is a very bad one. I paid one of the minor priests to issue a prayer for you. The only thing anyone can do is to watch over you and make you drink water. The priests say that you may join the spirits."

Mono wept and gripped one of his hands.

"Mono."

* * *

Wander stared down through the bars on the window high up in the circular arena.

"Well, I'll be…" he muttered to himself as he looked down to the center ground-floor. He beheld a Colossal lizard. It looked just like the creatures he'd made sport of hunting down to increase his strength. It did not seem to have a tail, however. Its tail was blunted and looked fin-like. Colored light oozed from beneath the thick scales of its heavily armored back.

The beast was dressed like a knight in his glory. It was also completely unaware of his presence. How long had this "tail" been trapped within this "pail?" Had it been shambling about for a millennium seeking a way out that it was unable to find? Such a fate would be a tragic thing, even for something as simple-minded as a lizard. The other Colossi had been of the earth, or otherwise a part of their temples and landscapes. It was a human presence in their proximity that had brought them to wakefulness.

Wander wondered about this arena. In his city, there was one reasonably like it. Warriors sometimes fought each other there for the joy of the common crowds. There were rarely any fatalities or permanently crippling injuries among the city's own men because his city needed as many young fighters ready to defend it and to go off to war as could be spared. Restraint was practiced in the games. Captive warriors from other lands, however, did not fare so well. A foreigner who fought well enough to win his freedom was taken outside of the city's gate, deprived of even the most basic of weapons and told to walk out into the wilderness. Honored with "freedom," they were unlikely to survive long enough to reach their own lands. Those that did not fight so well… they were considered blood-sacrifices to the gods. Wander remembered, with a wince, the few blood-sacrifices from among his own people that were taken to the arena for public display.

Mono had been the subject of a private, temple-sacrifice. The memory of the arena still stung him, however, especially since his attitude toward certain "necessities" of society had changed pretty drastically recently.

At the same time, non-human sacrifice didn't bother him. He knocked back an arrow and with his skillful aim, attracted the attention of a great shadow that crawls upon walls. He immediately regretted it, too, as the beast proved itself to be a kind of dragon-salamander, shooting charged clouds of poisonous vapor his way. Wander choked as he ran blindly to get away from it, desperate for fresh air. He could feel the gas burning his lungs, turning the breath inside them into acrid liquid.

He couldn't drop and let consciousness slip from him. Mono was not here to care for him and to wake him up. It was his job now to wake her up.

The glowing upon the salamander's legs gave away its weakness. After many tries and much awkward running, Wanders arrows found their mark. He was surprised he didn't hear the bones of his ankles break as he leapt down to deal with the prone Colossus. Then again, he was certain that he'd gained certain strengths between transfusions of black blood and dinners of unnatural tails.

He thanked all powers for soft bellies on lizards. He didn't much care that his prey hadn't meant him any harm until he'd invaded its space. As he stabbed down through one of two seals he saw on the beast's underside, the hunter noticed that the thrust of his sword had become crueler. It did not matter. His strokes were mean, but quick. Anything to get the job done. A promise of freedom beckoned to his blood. His skin was growing gray.

Wander had to roll out from beneath the giant lizard and make a run for it up the steps of the area as it breathed more misty death toward him. He almost fell and he could have sworn for a moment that he saw Mono's face smiling at him as she reached out her hand toward his.

He took the stairs two-at-a-time as he jumped through ancient outlets and inlets where crowds had once gathered to watch glorious feats and the shedding of blood. The little gladiator's arrows found their marks again and the giant once again flailed upon its back. It only took a few more cruel strokes before the clouds of poison vanished along with the memory of being cursed by food and cared for by a patient lover.

* * *

Was it over?

She rose from the altar, confused and lovely. She smiled at him, not worried that he was beaten and exhausted in an already rotting body.

She was alive.

She was happy - so happy.

The golden dream was ripped away from him as the wind whistled through the stone hall and another idol shattered. He pleaded desperately to stay within the dream, to see it as reality – the promise fulfilled.

"Mono…"


	9. Wanda and the Turdle

**SEALS**

**Chapter 9: Wanda and the Turdle**

A pair of small bare feet hit the dust and a black-haired head came bobbing out of the grass and weeds. Wander was drawing pictures in the dirt. He looked up as the neighbor-girl called him.

"Wanda! Wanda!" she called. Wander groaned.

She skidded to a stop in front of him in her tattered, dirty dress. "My name's not 'Wanda" the boy said with a scowl. "It's Wan-der. Remember the Er!"

"I gots somethin' ta show you, Wanda."

The girl was a little younger than he was, so he should have been more understanding of the lisp in her speech, but he was just a little boy. "Wander! WandER!" he said stamping his feet. "Wanda is a girl's name!"

And so it was in their culture, even though names could be varied and reflective of what people's occupations or interests were. Wander had always toddled off away from his parents and elder relatives as a toddler. When his parents had decided that he had a good enough shot at survival to bequeath him with an official name, "Wander" was what they picked. If the meaning is the same in Wander's native language as it is in the story you are reading, it is quite a lovely coincidence.

"You run like a girl," little Mono observed.

Wander pouted.

"Come on, Wanda, I gots ta show you somefin!"

Wander followed on down the path the girl made, letting his arms fail in that unique way he always did that prompted comments like Mono's. To be fair, she ran like a girl, too.

Mono stopped at a place in a grassy field outside her family's property. She pointed and chattered excitedly. "Isn't he neat? I tried ta pick him up, buuuutttt…"

"It's just a rock," Wander complained, until he saw it move slightly.

"It's a turdle!"

Wander laughed. "It is! Big ol' thing! I wonder where he crawled from."

The creature had feet that were flat and more like flippers than stumps. It had probably come from the rain-gutter swamp near the outer wall of the city-state.

Mono comically hiked up her dress and straddled her chubby little legs over the shell of the reptile. "I'magonna ride it, 'cause I can't pick it up."

"I bet I can pick it up!" Wander boasted. "I'm strong!"

Mono got off and let Wander struggle with her "turdle." He grabbed it by the edges of its shell and tried to lift it. He slid one of his little hands close to its front end.

"Ow!" the boy cried, "It bit me! It b-b-bit me!" He wailed a piercing child's wail.

Just then, Mono's father came out to the field to see what was going on.

"Wanda got bit," Mono said with a pouting lip.

"Let me see," the large man said. He examined the hand belonging to the neighbor-child. "It's alright. Just a little red. He's a boy, so he's gotta be tough."

The man effortlessly picked up the turtle, which pathetically flailed its limbs. "I think we're going to have turtle soup tonight. Quite a lucky find."

It was Mono's turn to cry. "Papa! Don't kill my turdle!"

"It is the only thing they're good for, sweetheart. You know that creatures are sacrificed so that others may live, that some are sacrificed so we can live."

Wander smiled as he rubbed his hurting hand with his healthy one. He couldn't be more pleased to have some turtle soup if Mono's parents had enough to spare for him.

* * *

The creature that had been disturbed from its slumber in the dry lake bed was horrible. It was tortoise-like, but quicker than any creature of the turtle and tortoise family Wander had ever seen. It's legs were long and took great strides. He thought of the beast as being something like a result of a successful mating between a turtle and a tick and the no doubt stone-like egg that was laid resulted in a Colossal offspring.

The young hunter rode his horse just out of range, galloping between spouting geysers. He noticed that they seemed to have a timing to them, the jets of water from each of them rather frequent. It seemed rather unlikely, yet that was how it was here in this magical yet gray land.

The damned tick-turtle spat bolts of lighting at him from some kind of generation organ beneath its face. Wander rode around, unsure of what to do until the Dormin spoke to him something cryptic about the energies of the earth. Then, entirely by chance, a geyser spouted just as the turtle-creature was over it, tipping it over. Wander rode toward it, forcing his dear brave mare to fight every survival-instinct she had, but she did trust him. He made short work pumping arrows into the glowing tender spots within the bottoms of his enemy's strange, cavernous feet.

The Colossus toppled and he ran to where it fell and squirmed. _I flipped the 'turdle', Mono,_ he thought to himself as he ran toward its hairy belly. The young warrior was disappointed to find that the belly held no brightly glowing seals. He found himself climbing upon the stone-reptile's back as it righted itself.

_I'm riding the 'turdle.'_

As another piece of his soul was sacrificed as he made the ninth Colossus a proper sacrifice for the sake of his beloved. The already faded childhood saga of "Wanda and the Turdle" was an adventure he'd never recall again. Somehow, as he felt the memory leaving him, the hunter found it an appropriate price for an existence in which some lives are sacrificed for the sake of others.

The geysers spouted. The wielder of the sword of sacrifice was sent back to the central temple. Rocks grew moss. In endless day, the world went on.


	10. Sad Eyed Beasts

**SEALS**

**Chapter 10: Sad-Eyed Beasts **

Its eyes were consuming the threads that were left of his soul.

Agro's hooves thundered, beating sand into powder as she gulped in breath and stayed just ahead of the serpentine Colossus that was coming straight for her. Wander kept her on as straight a path as he could as he swiveled in the saddle, aiming an arrow for one of the great worm's open eyes. The beast moved through the sand as though it were water, an effortless motion born of incredible strength or an alien nature.

When Wander first saw the creature poke its head above the sands of its lair to see him, he thought that they were full of hunger and murder. Now that he stared back at them, the weight of his horse fluxing beneath him, he could see nothing but an incredible sadness. It was mesmerizing.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine… All of the Colossi had eyes that appeared sad when he was able to get a good glimpse of their faces, even if that glimpse was for just a moment.

The eye sockets of the stone masks that made up their faces were dull, dark and dead if they failed to catch sight of him. If they knew the invader was around but were far away enough from him not to feel immediate danger, the eyes glowed blue. When they were on the attack, the eyes of the living statues glowed a peculiar sunset-red.

As Wander let an arrow fly nice and straight into the pupil of the Sand Tiger's right eye, he knew that breaking its seals would inevitably take a piece of him – a piece he would not know ahead of time and could not know after. He only felt the shadows replacing the absence of something in his soul and knew he was less himself with the more black blood he got on his hands.

Wander realized, as he spurred his horse out of the way of the blinded worm, that this time, he knew what piece of his soul he'd lost, for he had lost it already.

He no longer had to justify in his heart what he was doing anymore. He could look into the sad eyes of a creature about to be sacrificed and not care.


	11. The Warmth of a Fire

**SEALS**

**Chapter 11: The Warmth of a Fire **

People who lived tough lives enjoyed simple pleasures. The smell of pine-smoke from a fire in the open field or beneath an opening in the trees in some dark forest would lead Wander's spirit away to days in the wilds with his father and to the frosts of autumn. He'd always tried to limit his hunting of winter-game, though there were some animals that were best hunted in the snows. Winter was the time when his city closed up and people kept indoors by their hearths to wait out the bleak months telling stories, repairing tools and doing like things.

There was a pair of winter festivals with bonfires before the temple. They were, perhaps, the only festivals in the year that the priests did not sacrifice anything. Livestock tended to give birth in the spring and that was the time when the blood of chosen young lambs and kid-goats were to be given to the gods. The winter festivals were more of a time of merriment and getting drunk off the stores of the last of the summer ales and fall ciders as the winter lagers were being brewed. The great ceremonial bonfires were held for the citizens, to stave off the despair inherent in short days of bitter cold.

The best way Wander found to stave off despair in the frigid and boring winter days was to pay a visit to Mono's household. He'd bring a thick wool blanket and she provided the fire. They'd cuddle before the warmth of the fire wrapped in the blanket together and not do much else with Mono's father watching over them and her little siblings sharing the hearth-area. There were always stories, memories and plans for the future to share, as well as hot drinks that put a blush in their cheeks and laughter in their voices.

The warmth of her against him was what Wander longed to feel again more than anything, even as he'd noticed his own skin going numb and cold. He paused in his riding across the cursed country to find the next sacrificial beast he was to fell. He ate a thick-skinned yellow fruit and gazed at his reflection in a still pool. He was not himself. His hair had darkened and his skin was taking on a gray look.

He looked deader than Mono did. He wondered if the magic of this land and the contract he was under was causing him to take upon the decay that rightfully belonged to her.

As it was, he had voices in his head and feelings in his heart that he knew were not his. The Dormin bade him to seek a "guardian of flame." The shadows within Wander that communed with Dormin and made up a growing portion of its earthly essence shared in the young man's human memories of warm fires and bygone days.

_It hast been long aeons since we hath felt warmth…_ the shadows spoke, _This warrior's body feels the warmth we miss… _

Wander did not want to share. He struggled to keep parts of his being fully his. If he tried too hard to lock the doors of his mind, they would inevitably be unlocked. It seemed that when he did not think too much about anything other than the mission before him, the voices and foreign feelings stopped bothering him.

The hunter doubted these lands ever saw winter. He found himself riding through sands in a baked area beneath the Great Bridge. Even the green and shadowed areas of this place seemed to enjoy a perpetual stasis in the weather. He'd ridden through an autumn forest and an umbral glade. He came across a beautiful green cape in the south on his expeditions of exploration and silver-tailed lizard-hunting. Wander had no idea if Lord Emon and the other priests even knew who'd taken the sword and where the thief had gone to. If they were headed here, they were sure taking their time – unless Time was at a true standstill here. Perhaps they were unable to enter. In any case, Wander had taken his time to know the land and to get strong.

He left his horse behind to move down the canyon path he found to the ancient cavern with the altars bearing censers of flame. He awoke a being that struck him as being like a lion with boar's tusks. It was the size of ancient beasts in certain legends, the bones of which could be found embedded in rock, or about the size of a siege-wagon. For a Colossus, however, it struck Wander as small. This beast could have been the beloved child of the towering bull he slew at the seaside, or the pet "cat" of the Earthen Truth that had wielded a bridge-like sword.

It was quick, too. It moved like a cat and struck like lightening. Even as Wander ducked behind one of the altars, blood ran down his calf from where a sizable portion of skin had been sheered off by an armored claw. He climbed to the top of the stone to the censer and held on for dear life as the Colossus rammed into it, knocking down a flaming stick. Wander noticed how the creature backed away from it.

Dormin helpfully told him that it feared the flames…

So began a mad scramble and shouts of "Back! Back!" as Wander waved the flaming stick in front of the guardian of the flames. He wondered, for a moment, why a Colossus that feared fire would reside among ever-burning censers. The answer came to Wander's spirit – in shadow-knowledge he could not have possibly guessed on his own – that these fires had been lit long ago in hopes to guide spirits and that the Colossus had protected the originators of the flames. The living statues had all been magic-bound creatures, one way or another.

Wander wondered whether it was the Colossus itself that feared the warmth of a fire or if the black blood within it caused the fear. Either way – after making a running dive for one of the other altars when his fire went out and resuming his ploy – Wander sent the pathetically-whimpering Colossus off a cliff.

The armor on the sacrificial lion's back cracked and Wander had hoped to jump right down on it. He regretted missing that jump more than he regretted anything in the entire world save for his inability to protect Mono. The young man felt the wind knocked out of him as the Colossus batted him to the ground and treated him like he'd seen many a farm cat treat a wounded mouse. All Wander could do for moments that stretched out forever was to play dead. He felt dead. The only thing that kept him in a desire to remain alive was the thought of completing his mission.

When the Colossus turned, he made a run for it. He was butted to the ground again and rolled. His nose was broken and his ribs didn't feel right. Drawing in even the smallest breath hurt his chest, but miraculously, he could still feel his limbs working. A dark thought came to Wander: What if he was surviving this beating simply because he was half-dead already and a nearly completed vessel for a god of Death? From what he saw in the still pool of water earlier, he looked more like a corpse than a living man. If he was mostly "corpse," it may take a lot more than the normal damage to kill him. He still had enough of a mortal shell to worry about dying and enough of one to be in pain.

When he got up again, Wander dashed for the deep pond at the base of the canyon wall. Oh, thank all powers that the creature apparently could not swim! The water both stung and cooled his cuts and scrapes. He climbed up onto the trail that had brought him down to the canyon floor in the first place. The Colossus paced and growled at the pond's edge, unable to reach him. It roared in consternation and absolute rage when Wander sent an arrow into the seal upon its newly-exposed back. The hunter smiled to himself as a little spurt of black blood issued from the wound.

He kept pumping arrows into it from his safe vantage-point until it became clear he was getting nowhere. He was much too weak at this point to try to find somewhere he could jump onto its back. Wander ascended the trail, greeted his dear horse and rode to the nearest shrine. He'd rested at them before, but this was, perhaps, the first time that his prayers for healing were sincere.

As he made the journey back to the Colossus' cavern, Wander wished he could sit beside a gently crackling fire letting the warmth soak into and soothe his jangled bones. The beast had found its way back to its original guarding-area and Wander found his way, once again, atop an altar. Leaping onto the Colossus from it and grabbing tight was like riding a bull. The young man's bones were jostled again.

Getting soaked slick with black blood, all the young man wanted was a cold day beside a warm hearth with Mono. As the slain Colossus imparted him its strength, Wander forgot how wonderfully warm a fire could be.


	12. Toothache

**SEALS**

**Chapter 12: Toothache **

All of the Colosi had been strange, but the "paradise over the lake" was, perhaps, the strangest. It had taken Wander what felt like forever to find, with him getting lost in a strange dark patch of forest. He'd tried to shoot the doves that gathered beneath the trees in frustration without landing a shot. Normally, he'd never kill any meat he did not intend to eat or to give to others for food, but lately, the blood running through his veins had gotten colder. He was growing impatient.

The Colossus dripped as it rose from the waters. It had the horns of a metal bull and a green garden along its flattened back. It shot bolts of lightning that, though lightning, were muted by the lake-water. Getting to a place to start climbing it had been an exercise in endurance.

The hunter found that the top of its head (if it was, indeed, the creature's head) held teeth. The glowing mounds atop its crown proved to be very tooth-like when the young man got up close to them. They certainly could be of no function as teeth, at least not with the beast's anatomy as Wander saw it, but they had a dental look, nonetheless. They were glowing from cracks and fissures, which always had indicated sensitivity in the living statues, so Wander let fly with his sword.

The Colossus moved and moaned. It tried to oust the invader from its body in a slow, undulating landslide way. Wander winced every time he struck a "tooth." He had no true sympathy for his victim, but he remembered the keen sensation of toothache. He was reminded of a particular agony even as he tormented his earthen steed without mercy.

The young man had checked his jaw many times since coming to this forbidden country. He had not lost any teeth in any of his previous battles. This surprised him. Sooner or later, all the falling, stumbling to the tune of the roaring earth and the narrow avoidance of being stomped into the ground should have had the effect of knocking loose a few teeth, yet his mouth remained intact. It was sheer, blind luck, he'd concluded. The Dormin and their energies certainly hadn't protected him from bruising and pain. He'd nearly died and failed and he knew it. The fact that his bones and his teeth remained unbroken was something fairly miraculous.

Wander's first set of teeth weren't as lucky as his adult teeth had thus far been. When he was a little boy, he'd had a fight with another little boy in one of the paved streets in the center of his city. The older boy's gang had egged him on, shouting and spitting. Wander couldn't even remember what the fight had been about – over a stolen toy, or over who had the strongest father, probably. All he remembered was that he'd let fly with his small fists, hitting his mocker in the eye. After that, the boy had pushed him – hard, and he fell to the stone street. The fall had knocked loose a pair of his teeth. It had hurt - a lot.

They'd been soon to come out, anyway. As a boy, Wander had sort of looked forward to having a loose tooth. Being able to wiggle it around with his tongue had always been an interesting sensation. Having had teeth forced from him hadn't been pleasant at all.

Wander spent what he guessed would be "all morning" in this land in perpetual static daytime figuring out how to steer a giant by tormenting its ill-placed teeth. He made a heroic leap onto an ancient platform and taunted the Colossus into showing him its sealed heart, which he promptly put his sword through.

Some memories are unpleasant, such as a memory of pain inflicted by a bully in youth. They shape a life nonetheless. Some pieces of a soul are ugly, but are a part of it, even so. The hunter wouldn't have minded the loss of some memories if it were possible for him to be aware of their absence. However, having even that which he was going to lose anyway taken by force was always an injustice.

No matter how fast he ever ran or swam, the black threads always found him.


	13. Wounded Innocence

**SEALS**

**Chapter 13: Wounded Innocence **

"Do you believe in dragons, Wander?"

She rolled over on their picnic-blanket, propping herself up on her elbows. Mono gave him one of those inquisitive looks he could not resist, even if he was unsure about how to answer her.

"I've never seen one, if that's what you're asking," he replied.

"They're long and graceful, like snakes that move upon the air. That's what the priests say. They're supposed to be holy."

"So, if I ever see one, I'm not supposed to hunt it, right?"

"That's right… and if you're lucky, it may grant you a wish."

"Those are just children's stories, Mono," Wander groaned. "I've ranged far and wide and have never seen one."

"You haven't seen one – yet."

* * *

The dragon rose from the desert sands. Wander sat astride his horse staring up at it in awe. He'd finally found a dragon… but it was a Colossus. If it was, indeed, a holy creature, this was the ultimate tragedy – to see something scared twisted and bound by stone and black blood.

He spurred Agro across the desert blight, following the strange, beautiful being. It made no move to attack him. He did not know if it was even watching him. It seemed to be content merely to be awake and to drift across the sky.

Wander observed that the stone dragon had what looked like soft, inflated sacks along its underside. The "physiology" of the Colossi continued to baffle the young hunter. It was like nothing he'd seen in any other manner of creature. They were beings of stone and earth, animate mountains that moved elegantly given their size. Some had shown impossible balance, while the smallest of them had struck with the nimble speed of a cat. This one flew with a simple grace. He had a good guess as to how to bring it down. The problem was; he did not want to.

* * *

Mono looked sheepish and worried as she let her legs dangle over the edge of the wall they sat on. "One of the priests who came to bless my family's lands yesterday said that he'd had a dream about me," she said.

"Not a bad one, I hope," Wander said dourly.

"I don't know. All I know is that he met with my father and that he and some of the priests are coming to my home to examine me tomorrow."

Fear shot through Wander's heart and his eyes showed it.

Curses came in many forms in their culture, most often in the form of sicknesses. He had experienced the vengeance of lizards. Some curses were simple and could be cured or recovered from. Other curses were cause for sacrifice.

When someone was found with an illness-curse that was sure to kill them, it was considered merciful for the priests to "give them to the gods." In fact, sacrificing individuals due to curses that were already upon them was considered an elegant solution to the problem of showing proper devotion. The world ran upon cycles, including that of life and death. In order for the rivers to flow and the rain to fall upon their land, the gods demanded a show of devotion in the giving of that other fluid of life: blood. The blood of warriors kept the city-state defended. The blood of animals was given at important festivals. Occasionally, the blood of an innocent young person was needed as a proper exchange for important favors. Those found to have curses upon them already were the logical donors of this sacred blood.

Occasionally, curses were the subject of prophecy and not an issue of health. If one of the seer-priests were to have a powerful nightmare concerning misfortune swarming around an individual, they might demand a sacrifice to prevent the evil that individual was soon to bring to everyone around them.

"Wander..." Mono said gently as she put her hand over his. "It is probably nothing to worry about. The priests have visions all the time of people the gods have chosen to be temple-servants. They probably want to give me an elevated station… to make me a cleaner, or one who pours out the sacred water. They have been sort of workers around the temple lately, and you know they rely upon dreams for that."

"As long as they don't make you a high temple maiden…"

"It would be a great honor," the young woman said with a sad smile.

"But to be a higher-level servant or a maiden-priestess… they'd require you to be chaste. I'm not sure I can live with that."

His smile was roguish.

"I…" she said, leaning in close to him, her lips inches from his, "… would definitely become one of those disgraced priestesses who break their vows…"

* * *

The burst air-sacs sprayed misty black gore over the desert that dissipated and evaporated before it hit the ground. The Colossus tilted low over the desert, moving like a stream of honey running down a plate. It eased two pairs of great stone "wings" into the ground, four flukes that drew patterns in the sand that were lost as soon as they were created.

Wander rode hard up along side this portrait of wounded elegance, grateful for the speed of a horse. He choked through the clouds of dust the stone dragon was kicking up.

* * *

A knock upon the door of his family home roused Wander. He answered it to face a man in priestly robes and an ominous mask. The young man remembered, suddenly, the myth that was told at the last great bonfire ceremony. Lord Emon had worn that mask then – the mask that related to the legend of the Horned. There were many knights behind him. He heard the voice of someone he could not see behind the crowd.

"Wander!"

Wander burst out the door. He was held back by both Emon and one of his strong guardians.

"We came to inform you," Lord Emon began slowly. "She was betrothed to you. You should find a new mate, young man."

"What? No! What's going on! Mono!"

Two knights restrained him now as he fought and grunted. He kicked and even tried to bite one of them. A man brought Mono forward. Her hands were tied together behind her. She leaned over until her nose – dripping with tears – brushed his. Emon nodded, signaling his men to allow them to kiss before pulling the young woman back.

"She has been found to have a cursed fate," the elder said. "We are very sorry, but for her to continue in this world will bring you only misfortune."

As Mono was pulled back as the men made to leave, she cried out. "Don't let them kill me, Wander!"

And that was the last he heard before he charged toward her and was knocked unconscious with a swift blow to the back of the head.

* * *

After Wander had jumped off the falling highway in the sky and had rolled in the sands to safety, he watched it skid to its final rest. He could hear his horse making a racket behind him - concerned for him or just fearful of the crash and noise of the dying Colossus, he was not sure.

The young warrior clutched his sword, clean of the black and innocent blood it has shed. He stared at his kill as shadow began to envelop its lengthy form. As he stood, he noticed moisture drip off his nose and off his chin. Wander was weeping.

He had not cared for the things he'd killed in this land. Of late, he'd been engaged in murder with a driving passion, losing even the compassion their eyes. This creature was different. All were innocent, beings whose territory he'd invaded but this one – this "holy dragon" had been truly innocent.

An innocent-but-cursed being spilled its blood for the sake of the cycle of life and this time, he had been the one to perform the ritual. His fingers loosened on the hilt of the sword, but he did not drop it.

The shadows came over him and he could feel one of the threads brush his lips in a farewell kiss.


	14. The Secret City

**SEALS**

**Chapter 14: The Secret City **

Wander stood atop ancient brickwork overlooking the remains of what appeared to be a great center of convention and commerce. There were channels for water, pillars and a broken street. He looked down the street as he explored the area. For just a moment, he saw people milling about and market stalls before a great temple. Suspended thresholds became narrow second-level streets upon which people walked. Structures built of wood, mud and other lesser materials had long since rotted away. Only stone and firm concrete remained through Time.

The ghost-images of the long-dead vanished. Wander gripped his sword and tried to pinpoint the location of his enemy again. The memories that tugged at him were not his own. The ritual was nearly complete. Most of the hunter's blood was now black. Most of his soul had darkened.

Running through the empty ruins, Wander remembered the "secret city" belonging to him, Mono and their friends. It was a game they'd played as children – seeking out secluded alleyways and buildings that people didn't use anymore. There was one old house they'd set up a secret club in, complete with a small garden, overgrown with weeds. There had been rumors that the clan that had once held it was wiped out in an epidemic long before any of them were born. Most of the children of the city thought it was haunted, but Wander and Mono had found it clear of black spirits. It became a place for them and their friends to play.

This broken manor and all of the water runoff outlets, secret alleys and secret bridges were not a secret to the adults in their lives, but the children thought they were. Of course, they thought they had discovered the special places of their city hidden within the city. Like the discoverer of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant or tavern, "their city" was a special thing of their own, something they felt that only they knew about even as what they'd found was already widely-known.

As they grew from children into young adults, Wander and Mono had found out just what a non-secret the "secret city" had been the whole time, but those lonely places became no less special for it.

Wander clambered over a fallen pillar. The beings within him recognized the grand temple as one that had not been dedicated to them. The Colossus was awakened and raced down to destroy the invader. Wander panicked and scrambled up another broken pillar. This one was quicker than the one that had guarded the fire! It was also just as well-armored.

The young man jumped and gripped onto the ancient columns and supports. He ran across grass-covered stone roads as the angry hulk below him rammed into them, trying to knock him down. Briefly studying the creature's movements and apparent strength let Wander know that falling and becoming ground borne was a certain death-sentence, even in his already corpse-like and strangely strengthened body.

Hefting himself atop a great pillar, he paused and watched the Colossus pace like an angry cat below. In truth, the creature's body-style and movements reminded him slightly more of a dog – it was like one of the great, swift hunting hounds that men in gathered, horseback hunts set after wild boars. Boars were dangerous, so the dogs that felled them had to be equally dangerous. The Colossus was a bit like a boar, too. It pawed the earth with a hoof upon growing bored and agitated.

Wander sent some arrows its way. He knew they'd just bounce off the back-armor, but if he could get the creature to keep on chasing him, he could leap between safe vantage-points until he could find some weak-but-heavy structure that could crack its armor… or a cliff to send it off of. Unfortunately, he had not seen any sufficient ravines – just the ancient city.

He wondered how long this place had lain undisturbed as he jumped and climbed up another tall pillar. Wondering about this place gave him a mild distraction from his sore and scraped fingers. His hands were made of calluses now. His fingertips and the edges of his palms were almost like hooves. They could still crack and bleed when caught upon sharp edges of rain-worn stone. The blood was dark, but just a little red at the edges and when the sunlight hit it just right. This gave what was left of his humanity a little bit of hope.

Wander felt the pillar he was on going down and jumped in a way as to land atop the edge instead of falling into the grass. He'd found a beautiful secret city, one that he and Mono could possibly share and rebuild once this whole ordeal was over and she was alive again. They certainly could not go back to their own city. He knew that his attempted actions here constituted a clean break from life as he'd known it. As it was, he was destroying this beautiful, skeletal city and dashing the potential for its resurrection. Watching the armored face that was charging at him, he knew that it was an unfortunate necessity.

Eventually, the ruins lay even more ruined. Wander narrowly avoided instant death as he made a mad scramble for something to climb after the last pillar fell. He managed to heft himself up onto a wall just as his enraged prey figured out where he was and came straight for him. The hunter stood in relative safety and taunted the creature with arrows, having found just what he'd needed.

As the dumb stone beast cracked open its casing, Wander made a mad scramble to avoid the wrath of the hound. Perching safely upon a fallen pillar, he watched the Colossus stun itself, jumped onto its hairy back, made several clumsy butcher's-stabs and held on for a swift tour of the destruction he and the beast had wrought together.

He actually prayed to Dormin as he drove the sword home for the final time because he didn't think he'd be able to get an opportunity to strike again. With the final breaking of the seal, both of Wander's "secret cities" were once again lost to the indifferent void of Time.


	15. Endless Corridors, Hopeless Warriors

**SEALS**

**Chapter 15: Endless Corridors, Hopeless Warriors **

There was once a young man with the improbable name of Wander. He rode boldly into an ancient land that had been forbidden to his people for so long that Time itself seemed to have forgotten it. He did not do this to sate curiosity nor did he do this out of some kind of rebellions spirit. He did not come to the ancient land because he was forced to. It had been difficult to find. All he had to inform him of the place was an ancient map that had clouds drawn all over it to convey obscurity, a few rumors regarding mountains and valleys, and a story about a long, magical bridge.

The young man named Wander had come to the Forbidden Land for one reason and one reason only; he was in love. He was in love and the lifeless body of the person he loved was wrapped up and cradled upon the saddle of his horse.

The only thing anyone knew about the Forbidden Land was an old myth that an entity of great power had been sealed here long ago with the sacred sword kept in the temple of Wander's city. The myth told of enormous, impossible creatures that existed in the land. Most importantly, the stories told around bonfires, campfires and hearths about this forgotten country held that the giants that made up parts of the landscape carried in their blood the power to bring back the dead.

Most people would have accepted loss – even a loss through murder – without upsetting the demons of a cursed country. When Wander had managed to get through the press of the crowd and to fight past the guards to get to the interior of the Tower of Heaven, the great temple of his city, he had lost himself. He'd climbed up the spiral to the ceremonial chambers, hopeless, as he was without a weapon at the time. He hadn't even carried his bow because he knew the guards would just rip it away from him. He had not really known what he was going to do and just charged in with slippery speed and physical strength. He was sure he'd been let through as a matter of sympathy, in the end.

"_Don't let them kill me, Wander!"_ had been ringing in his head the entire time.

When he'd gotten to the platform, he was too late. The coward-priests wouldn't even look at him from behind their masks. Lord Emon, the head-coward, had simply intoned to him "You. Very well. Take her and leave."

Mono was clean – apparently bathed specifically for the ceremony. She wore a ceremonial dress and the wound – a heart-wound through her back made by a sacred dagger – had been swift and clean. Much blood had been lost and it ran into the channels of the graven magical symbol in the floor - yet the young woman had looked peaceful. Had she gone willingly in the end? Wander shivered at the thought when he'd held her.

He'd walked down the spiral and out of the temple, ignoring the murmurings and mumblings from gathered people. He'd bypassed the home of Mono's family. He had not wanted to see those people – they had allowed this to happen. He'd taken her to his own home and cleaned her up, feeling numb.

Adults of his culture dealt with death quite easily. Death was very much a part of Wander's life, with him being skilled in the hunting arts. Human death was not looked away from, either. Families dealt with the dying and with the remains they left behind in their own homes. Funerals were typically quick, within a day or two of the passing so as not to incur illness-curses from the decay of the deceased. Wander bandaged the wound and procured a fresh dress – one that he had purchased for her as a gift he had yet to give her. When a relative asked him what he was going to do, he'd lied and told them that he was going to bury his betrothed in the flowering field where they'd shared their first sincere kiss as adults.

Instead of fetching a shovel, Wander decided to fetch a sword. He'd awaited the time of deep night when all of the priests went to their sleeping chambers. A "cloak of deception" that he'd managed to find in one of the places where artifacts were kept helped him greatly, but mostly, he'd taken to avoiding guardians by using his extraordinary upper-body gifts and climbing sections of the tower, bit by bit, resting upon ledges and shimmying through narrow windows. The sword was in the same room that he'd remembered from the time he'd seen it on display with Mono. The rays of dawn were lighting its edges just as Wander snatched it.

He'd managed to get back through the city with the stolen cloak, but it had caught upon a nail in his doorway. It was torn and its magic disappeared. He'd quickly wrapped the body of his beloved in another robe and made for the stables, hoping no one who was awake at this hour would notice the new sheathed weapon upon his hip. He had then spurred Agro to the darkest and most dangerous forest he knew, easing her pace when he was sure he was a relatively safe distance from the city.

He'd galloped right past the flowered field where he and Mono had shared their first lover's kiss and toward the mountains in the distance.

The moment he'd seen Mono on the chamber floor in the Tower of Heaven – Wander broke. His soul had shattered into fragments and had spilled out of him like her blood had seeped from her body.

No price was too heavy for him to pay. He assured Dormin of that.

Wander had come to the Forbidden Lands to do nothing less than to reunite souls; to reunite Mono's soul with her body so it would be warm again and they would be together – to reunite the fragments of the shattered entity that promised to make it happen – and to gather himself back together.

So far, he had only lost himself. More and more Wander had been consumed by the shadow-blood of ancient spirits. When he met another hopeless warrior – a giant that had fallen into a valley – he was not sure if he was the young man with the improbable name of Wander or if he was the Dormin, missing but two parts of a true corporeal form and borrowing a mortal's until the puzzle was complete.

The young man and vessel ran along the ancient pavilion and used the giant sentry's own tactics against him. He ran down the ancient corridors that had once served as gathering places for crowds whose bones had long since turned to ash and dust to scatter upon the winds of the ancient desert fortress.

The solution to this puzzle was quite standard. Wander had a human memory of being taught that to use an opponent's own moves against him assured victory in a fight – was it his father who had taught him that? He knew many strategies – to look for gaps in armor to aim an arrow into when facing an armored warrior – to know the behavior of certain animals, such as their habits when calm and oblivions as well as what they do when they panic…

Perhaps it was appropriate that some of Wander's last human memories were those of hunting and battle. Still, he was bidden by the Dormin to find the hidden seals on this particularly well-sealed Colossus.

When the old soldier fell, so did Wander.

After he awakened in Dormin's keep, there was one last piece of him left.

He was warned to make haste and he could sense in his bones that beings that did not want him to become whole again in the material plane were coming to stop the ritual. There was a single piece left. The last to die and to thereby be freed was the most malicious part of him, a part that constituted a cruelty and ferocity so dangerous that it had been affixed in the ancient days to a single place. This contained malice sank any ship that was ever storm-washed too close to the southern shore.

The ones that had sealed him had to destroy an architectural wonder to contain _that _fragment behind a holy seal. A seal had been placed upon a gate as well that would only open with the death of all the others.

Each of the Colossi had contained the pieces that any soul, living or dead, had ever contained: Loneliness, strength, truth, curiosity, caution, wisdom, wildness, shadows, anger, grief, devotion, strangeness, joy in freedom, secrets, watchfulness and… malice.

At the same time, there was something foreign to the nearly freed ancient soul, something particularly organic, differing from cold stone and rumbling earth. The Dormin dealt with the passage of souls of all beings, but he'd never felt this fragment of a soul so intimately.

Wander looked down at Mono one last time. He felt faded and knew that he was almost gone. In fact, he was fairly certain that this last hunt would end his life – but it was worth it in exchange for hers. At first, he had wanted to bring her back to be with her, to live their lives together. In truth, he still wanted that, even as he knew that the "heavy price" might be him. He accepted the end now. She deserved her innocent life more than he deserved his guilty one.

Agro walked up to the young man and he reached around and stroked the mare's cheek and muzzle. Wander then mounted and rode off down the stairs and out into the wilds, following the light of his sword.

Indeed, this fragment of passion was strange to that which had been long ago fragmented and was still incomplete.


	16. The Demise of the Ritual

**SEALS**

**Chapter 16: The Demise of the Ritual **

This world was one of brokenness. The Forbidden Lands were broken between different kinds of country. The wanderer rode past the Blasted Lands and the resting places of broken beasts, past the broken shoreline and the broken mountains to the Green Cape and to the great Gate Seal, which became the Broken Seal by the light of his sword. There was one last seal to break, one last beast to slay before a broken heart could be put to rest and a broken entity of shadow and spirit could be made whole.

The last of the wanderer's ties to his former life was severed with a broken whinny as his only companion warm with blood and soul plummeted into a river from a dizzying height. Wander called after her, disbelieving that the mare had saved his life. He'd been thrown from horses before, but that had been through accident or agitation, not at all like this. Agro had always been a brave mare – too brave for her own good.

The Dormin wondered about this. Dormin had grief as a part of its makeup, but feeling its measure in the organic vessel was quite curious. So much was united now that thoughts of loneliness, devotion and grief, formerly fragmented, could be felt keenly again for the first time in endless eons, and filtered through the mad heart of a human, these things were intensified.

Not all of Wander's blood was cold. Not yet. There was only one way to go – up and in.

Upon reaching the plateau, Wander beheld his final adversary. The baleful tower stood tall, with its eyes and structures on its wrists alight. It looked just a little bit more human to him than the other Colossi had. Its head, from what Wander could see of it, appeared human – like a man with down-turned horns. Other Colossi had taken human-like forms, but had heads and faces like those of beasts. The first and the sixth were bull-men. The third had a mask-like face and a quality like that of a grotesque doll. The fifteenth – the great sentry – had reminded Wander of an ape.

The landscape was dotted with broken pillars and ancient archer's posts, left over from the forgotten time when the denizens of this ancient country had defended themselves from sea-borne invaders or possibly from the Colossus that resided there. Dormin did not reminisce or give what was left of its vessel any kind of clue. The Dormin merely urged Wander on.

The young man dodged blots of fierce thunder-magic as he dove into an underground passage. The awakened giant shook the earth and the hunter staggered to get his footing. Something echoed in his head, something that was outside himself, but communicating with the shadows inside him.

"_Hast thou not been caught up in her cursed fate?" _

Wander shook his head and climbed up broken stonework, shimmied through tunnels and concentrated on dodging the bolts of death that were being shot towards him.

"_Her curse hast swirled about thou. Thou hast suffered much for her. Hast thy sacrifice been of worth?" _

Wander ground his teeth together. He exited a final corridor to find himself at the enormous feet of this last living statue. As he proceeded to climb its hanging stone tunic, he knew that the final fragment of shadow-soul was attempting to remain separate and was exercising its malice upon his mind.

Up the hunter scrambled over ancient architecture. It was magnificent and Wander had a flash of memory that he'd thought had fled from him of scrambling up the Tower of Heaven in the city of his birth, urgent to grasp the sacred sword that would make everything right again. The memory washed away, overshadowed by the driving need to kill and unite what was inside him with what was inside the last of the idols.

The warrior struck the soft spot on the Colossus' back without fear or tears of sorrow. He leapt up onto a hairy hand with pointed claws, scrambled up stone armor and struck more soft places. He used his archer's skill upon the creature's shoulder, hefted himself onto its neck-armor and made for the hair-covered head. He nearly fell to an instant death many times as the otherwise immobile being thrashed and swayed, loosening his grip and throwing him off balance.

Had he merely been swept away in a cursed fate, the ambient misfortune of another?

Perhaps Lord Emon had been right after all – in a way that none of his seers could have dreamed.

* * *

The Dormin returned home to find his temple invaded by living mortals. He could sense that it was they that had sought to keep the seals upon him in place. The last idol had been shattered and he had been freed. He knew, however, that the elder presented a threat. He was a man who knew the way of the seals.

The Dormin was thinking primarily in "male sense" now, rather than in its fragmented masculine and feminine voices - mostly because the body it had been united in was a male one and kept a wisp of its masculine personality. The vessel arose shakily, sluggish, as Dormin's invasion had rendered it mostly a corpse. The warrior was still alive, though his consciousness existed merely as a shadow.

"You!" the gray elder said.

Grief intensified as Dormin recognized this man as the source of his vessel's deep sadness. Had he been daring to breathe prayers over the corpse on the altar? The vessel stepped forward without Dormin's command. Anger welled up. It was a rage different than that of disturbed beings of earth.

Dormin had been certain that the ritual was complete and that he had taken over, as a whole entity, a new body. He'd thought he'd replace the young man's soul. One word pulled out of the darkness – a name - along with one strong feeling. The vessel stepped toward the altar and reached out.

"_Mono…" _

Dormin pulled back at this rebellious fragment of mind. The shadow-consciousness grew stronger, threatening to take over. Even if it was only by a single fragment, a memory and scrap of the young man's soul refused to be relinquished.

"_Mono…" _

Pain. Swift, sharp pain shot through the vessel's body. It tried to press forward, but collapsed and refused to work. It continued to try, its memory refusing to be consumed with staggering defiance.

Then the heart-wound came. One of the invading mortals had stabbed through the one of the principal "seals" that kept human souls united with the material world. The lingering ghost of the man improbably named "Wander" did not flee, however, as it had joined with the entity that controlled the souls of the dead. The Dormin's essence sprayed black blood all over the chamber. It came out in the kind of high-pressure spout that had issued from the seals of its former vessels as they'd been broken.

With this body broken, the Dormin unleashed itself in full force. It was free now and refused to let mortal creatures divide and conquer it again. At the same time, there was this uncontrollable anger – not entirely from the shadow-god, but from the wisp of a mortal that had become a part of it.

The unfortunate thing about the Dormin's true material form was its size. Much like most of the magical beings it had been sealed within, Dormin's true form was powerful, but lumbering. The pain of arrows fired by panicked men stung its arms and chest. It slammed the floor with a fist that would not descend quickly enough. It roared and thrashed.

None of the living men were bold enough to try to climb it.

For the glimmer of a moment, the fragment of a mortal soul that remained within the shadow knew what death had been like for the sixteen idols it had shattered. He knew the strange paradox of what it was like to be mighty, yet helpless.

The elder ascended the spiral stair, fleeing in terror. He preformed some kind of silent rite and threw the sacred sword into the temple pool. The swirling vortex of magical energies clawed at Dormin. The Dormin fought to stay material, to stay alive.

The mortal fragment fought to try to make it to the altar.

The Dormin flew through and out of him in wind-torn fragments.

Wander fought and reached for the altar.

"_Mono…" _

The last thing that remained of him was his love for the girl. He remembered nothing of his life before the Forbidden Lands, before Dormin – but her. He remembered her – that he loved her and that he needed her to be alright.

He would never know that Dormin, in the end, had kept its promise.

* * *

The tickle of a velvet muzzle brought attention to tender new skin. The crippled horse turned away as the confused young woman picked up the strange, squirming child.

Poor little devil-child. He was not the horse's master. The horse's master had given himself until no memory remained.

Mono held the baby close, smiling ruefully. The child knew nothing but her warmth and the sense of love she conveyed through her gentle touch.

Perhaps that was the only thing immune to death….

If nothing else, love remained.

* * *

END.


End file.
